The Newtown Pentacle

How ghastly, it’s Tuesday.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As you’re reading this, a humble narrator is either on his way to Manhattan for his second vaccine shot, or returning from that accursed island all juiced up with the stuff. Other than a bizarre desire to stand in front of an operating microwave oven while browsing Amazon for the latest model of X-Box, I didn’t have any side effects from the first shot. I’m told that the second shot is a different circumstance, but life is all about the little surprises and unexpected moments, ain’t it?

A big box store of some kind is meant to be occurring fairly soon nearby the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek here in Long Island City, so the demolition crews have rolled through recently. This has luckily opened up a point of view for the venerable Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant across the water in Greenpoint, so hooray.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Vaccinated Mitch, I would suggest, is going to be behaving like the proverbial bat let out of hell. I’ve got plans, I tell you! To start, I will be switching my schedule around and leaving HQ while the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself is bobbing about in the vault above. Never thought I’d look forward to riding the subway, but there’s that too. I want to do some of the tourist things before they all start to reappear this summer – the Empire State Building and Hudson Yards observation decks, CircleLine, even ride on one of those goofy double decker buses. A Pentagenarian Superman invulnerable to the plague, armed with a camera, me.

First thing I’m doing is actually going to involve trying to burn off these pandemic pounds I’ve accumulated. Fat as a house, I am, which is dangerous. First, I’m going to walk all of the East River Bridges back and forth to the City, then work my way out to the edges of the City – Arthur Kill, Jamaica Bay, maybe even visit that legendary mystery called the Bronx. My ignorance of the Bronx has been carefully cultivated, and I’ve gone out of my way over the last fifteen years to pay no attention whatsoever when it was discussed in my presence.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

One has an odd habit of saving things for some future infirmity or other unfortunate circumstance. There’s a couple of books Our Lady of the Pentacle has been recommending to me for the entire span of our relationship, which I’m saving for a broken leg or similar interval. Same thing goes for the “Battlestar Galactica” remake from a few years ago, and the entire Borough of the Bronx.

What I’m really, really, looking forward to is pointing the camera at different things which aren’t strictly within walking distance of Astoria. I’m proud of the fact that I kept on shooting, and managed to keep y’all somewhat entertained during this interval. Saying that, the depths of my boredom and desire to see new or novel things have seldom been deeper.

Once more unto the breech…

Note: I’m writing this and several of the posts you’re going to see for the next week at the beginning of the week of Monday, March 22nd. My plan is to continue doing my solo photo walks around LIC and the Newtown Creek in the dead of night as long as that’s feasible. If you continue to see regular updates here, that means everything is kosher as far as health and well being. If the blog stops updating, it means that things have gone badly for a humble narrator.

“follow” me on Twitter- @newtownpentacle

Buy a book!

“In the Shadows at Newtown Creek,” an 88 page softcover 8.5×11 magazine format photo book by Mitch Waxman, is now on sale at blurb.com for $30.